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ARROWS 



OR 



TEACHING A FINE ART 



BY 



ADDISON BALLARD, D. D. 

PROrZSSOR OF LOGIC, NEW YORK UNIYBRSITT 



Second Edition 



A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 
NEW YORK 






Copyright, 1890 and 1898» by 
JL S. BARNES & COMPANY 



Bgrtnuudhr 
29 '06 



The substance of three Addresses 
is here given, with the thought that 
others besides those to whom they 
were first delivered may find in them 
also something in the way of both 
agreeable and profitable suggestion, 

A. B. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Arrow, . • . . . . . , i 

I. The Outfit, ........ ii 

II. Teaching, a Fine Art, .... 29 

III. The Lordship of Love, . • . . 63 



TO 

MY PUPILS 

OF 

EARLIER AND LATER YEARS 



THE ARROW. 



THE ARROW. 

In his "Song of Ascents" the wis- 
est ruler of his own or of any time 
gives us what may be taken as an 
apt symbol of an ideally-perfect edu- 
cation : 

*'As Arrows in the hand of a 
mighty man, so are children of the 
youth." 

The rude club is no mean weapon, 
as "when Van Amburgh with one 
in his hand compels a tiger's feroc- 
ity to submit to his will." But 



2 THE ARROW, 

rive this ungainly club into square 
sticks. Let the square stick be 
rounded, smoothed, headed, and 
feathered. Its effectiveness is now 
incalculably increased. The maxi- 
mum of energy is attained by this 
union of strength and beauty, of 
firmness and grace,^ of tough fiber 
and fine finish. 

I. The mind must be made to 
grow evenly and in proportion. 
That is rounding and smoothing 
the arrow. It must be armed with 
courage and decision. That is 
heading the arrow. It must be 
guided by unerring principle. And 
that is feathering the arrow. This 
trinity of training is needed to make 
a perfect arrow, or a perfect man. 



THE ARROW, 3 

2. The barb and feather may be 
right, but the arrow-stem, though 
strong, may be ill-proportioned and 
clumsy. This makes an excellent 
weapon, and in the ''hand of a mighty 
man" does good and brave work. 
This is the self-made man with 
whom force and purity of purpose 
make up largely for the lack of the 
culture of the schools. It is some- 
thing to have accomplishments, but 
it is more to accomplish. The glory 
of a "self-made" man is not that 
he is self-made, but that he is made. 

3. Again, the arrow may be 
symmetrical, highly polished and well- 
feathered, but may have a weak head 
This is the man of ability, culture, 
and good intentions, but without 



4 THE ARROW, 

earnestness of purpose and strength 
of will. He either sinks shattered, 
or flies disheartened at the first onset 
of error or wrong. Instead of split- 
ting the head of the foe, the arrow's 
own head is split and spoilt ; the piti- 
ful spectacle of superior goodness 
quailing before the frowning front of 
falsehood, knavery, or injustice. 

4. Or, once more, the arrow may 
be straight, smooth, and well-headed, 
but without a feather. Then you are 
not at all sure of the trueness of its 
flight. It is more likely to miss than 
to hit the mark. This is the man of 
well-trained intellect, polished man- 
ners, and force of will, but without 
uprightness of principle. Fie is the 
man whom you can not trust. He 



THE ARROW. 5 

veers this way or that, according to 
the preponderating motive of self-in- 
terest. True principle holds this 
oblique tendency continually in check, 
causing the whole man with the full 
momentum of his finely disciplined 
powers to revolve unvaryingly about 
the immovable axis of right. 

None are more to be honored and 
envied than those who in the home, 
school, church, seminary, or college, 
have in their hands the training of 
youth, ready at the fit moment to be 
launched forth on the world's broad 
and hotly - contested battle - field. 
*' Happy the man who has his quiver 
full of them/' Happy the teacher 
whose fidelity and skill draw crowds of 
ingenuous youth to his presence, who 



6 THE ARROW. 

has had hundreds, it may be thou- 
sands, shaped by his wise and loving 
hands to stand as faithful sentinels on 
perilous outposts of duty, to guard 
the intrenchments of truth, to face 
error on the open field, or to plan for 
new and more effective assault. 

It is a striking coincidence that, 
answering exactly to the beautiful 
simile of the Jewish king, there is 
found among the Chinese the no 
doubt earlier saying that, " When a 
son is born into a house, a bow and 
arrow are hung before the door/' 

Prudent people of the world are 
sometimes heard to express wonder 
that men who might *' do so much 
better " in business or in other profes- 
sions should be contented with the 



THE ARROW, 7 

small and often insignificant returns 
they receive as pastors and teachers. 
These worldly-wise objectors remind 
us of the good King Alfred's hostess 
in the peasant's hut, who upbraided 
the king for not attending to the 
cakes which she had left him to turn. 
And what was the explanation of the 
king's neglect? 

It was that he was fashioning his 
arrows for another and more deter- 
mined battle with the Danes, those 
insolent attackers from beyond the 
sea of his beloved England, and of 
his own rightful but disputed throne. 

It was that his thoughts were busy, 
just then, with something more im- 
portant than cakes. 



I. 

THE OUTFIT. 



THE OUTFIT. 

In order to do, we must have some- 
thing to do with; something exter- 
nal to our purpose, and at the same 
time adapted to its accomplishment. 
These two ideas of externality and 
adaptability give us the word " outfit.'* 
As coming between the two extremes 
of purpose and accomplishment, they 
give us the word " means." 

Other things being equal, the best 

work will be done by those having 

II 



12 THE OUTFIT, [i. 

the best means for doing it ; the best 
furrowing by the best plow, the best 
weaving by the best loom, the best 
sailing by the best boat. 

In nature it is because the outfits 
fit so exactly, that the results are so 
uniformly perfect. It is because the 
beaver has so complete a dam-build- 
ing outfit that he succeeds so perfect- 
ly in building his dam, the nautilus 
with keel and canvas that he succeeds 
so admirably in sailing, and the spider 
with her spinnerets and bag of liquid 
silk that she takes hold so deftly with 
her hands and succeeds so defiantly in 
getting '' into the king's palace." 

It follows from this that improve- 
ment in outfit may be taken as the 
measure of improvement in product. 



i.j THE OUTFIT, 13 

The ages of stone, of bronze, and of 
iron mark the steps in this advance, 
and the tool-maker has the honor of 
naming his epoch. What could the 
journalist of the day do without his 
improved power-press, the biologist 
without his microscope, the astrono- 
mer without his diffraction-plate and 
speculum, the admiral without his 
plated ship? It is in armories and 
gun-foundries that battles are lost or 
won. It was in the ship-yard that 
the Puritan beat the Genesta. The 
needle-gun conquered Austria at 
Sadowa and consolidated Germany. 
The better outfit gives a costly and 
irritating backset to its sleepy and 
outrun rival. The laggard loom is 
the ruin of the belated mill. Noth- 



*^p 



14 THE OUTFIT, [i. 

ing ages so quickly as bewildered 
inferiority of equipment. No such 
capacious limbo, outside of Milton's, 
as that into which outdone machines 
and methods are unpityingly cast. 
Set thrones, if you will, for the great 
discoverers, naval and military com- 
manders, projectors of vast lines of 
transportation and travel, and archi- 
tects of noble buildings. But beside 
them set other thrones for the instru- 
ment-makers, the handicraftsmen, the 
mechanics, without whose exact and 
patient toil the former had not been 
able to achieve either their success or 
their renown. 

When Solomon, so runs the Jewish 
legend, had completed the great 
Temple, he prepared a luxurious ban- 



■M^ ■■ — 



I.] THE OUTFIT. 15 

quet to which he invited the artificers 
who had been employed in its con- 
struction. But upon unveiling the 
throne, it was seen that a stalwart 
smith with his huge sledge had 
usurped the place of honor at the 
right of the King's seat ; whereupon 
the people made an outcry, and the 
guards rushed in to cut the intruder 
down. " Hold, let him speak," com- 
manded Solomon, *'and explain to 
us, if he can, his great presumption." 

**0 King," answered the smith, 
'* thou hast invited to the banquet all 
the craftsmen but me. Yet how 
could these builders have reared the 
Temple without the tools which I 
fashioned ? " 

" True," exclaimed the King, "the 



1 6 THE OUTFIT. [i. 

seat is his by right. Let all pay- 
honor to the iron-worker." 

What is true of the trades and of 
the arts is equally true of the profes- 
sions. The best professional work is 
done, other things being equal, by 
those who have the best professional 
outfit The intellect is but an instru- 
ment. And as the best mechanical 
and artistic results come by use of 
best tools, so the best law-making 
and law-administering, the best med- 
ical practicing, the best journalizing, 
preaching, and teaching, is done by 
those whose mental capabilities are 
best fitted by the best training for 
these high and honorable tasks. How 
may such an intellectual equipment 
be secured ? 



I.] THE OUTFIT. ly 

If you wish for a set of drawing 
or surgical instruments, you have but 
to order them of the manufacturer, 
and he sends them to you ready 
made. You have no hand in the 
making of them. The instruments 
have no hand in shaping themselves, 
nor choice as to the place where they 
shall be made. The ore has nothing 
to do with getting itself dug out of 
the mine, nor the steel in getting 
itself fashioned into the blade, nor the 
blade in getting itself tempered and 
ground to a cutting edge. The 
quality of the instrument depends 
not at all on the will or skill of the 
purchaser, but wholly on the skill, 
patience, and fidelity of the instru- 
ment-maker. 



i8 THE OUTFIT. [l 

Mind can get itself shaped and 
sharpened after no such ready-made 
fashion. No mental power is trained 
to purpose by mere receptivity. A 
sun-glass has a certain heating quality 
dependent on the quality of the glass 
and the convexity of its sides. It is 
powerless to increase its own heating 
capability. One fair and full test, 
and you have tested your lens once 
for all. Hold it steadily under a 
clear sun. If it fuse the metal or 
ignite the wood, well and good. If 
not, that is the end. Repetition of 
trial imparts no new igniting or fus- 
ing energy. 

Direct your mind to a subject, its 
effectiveness grows with each exer- 
tion. Fix your thought steadily on 



I.] THE OUTFIT, 19 

the algebraic problem, or theorem 
in Calculus, or hard passage in Latin 
or Greek, or abstruse point in mental 
or moral philosophy, or on the theme 
which you have selected for your next 
essay, treatise, or oration, but which 
utterly refuses as yet to get itself into 
any orderly arrangement of ideas. 
You fix your thought, but nothing 
comes ; nothing gives away. The 
chip does not even smoke. The 
bit of lead gives no sign of surren- 
der. But you by no means give 
up as you gave up with your once 
tested and insufficient lens. You 
focus your thought again on pre- 
cisely the same problem, theorem, 
or theme; possibly with no better 
apparent success. Yet at each trial 



20 THE OUTFIT. [i. 

your mental burning-glass has grown 
a little stronger, until when perhaps 
you were least expecting so delight- 
ful a surprise, the bright focal spot 
bursts all at once into a flame, or 
the hitherto stubborn ingot melts^ 
Then you are ready, and only in this 
way can you be ready, for a harder 
problem, for a more intricate theorem, 
for a more profound speculation, for 
the analysis of a more involved 
theme ; until nothing, at length, can 
resist the concentrated heat, unfused 
and unresolved. 

There is this advantage in having 
done our best, that if the matter be 
still obscure, a mere hint from 
another suffices to make it clear. 
When Judge Story was a member 



MH^ 



I.] THE OUTFIT. 21 

of the Massachusetts Legislature, 
one point in a pending bill he was 
unable, after having given to it his 
best thought, to elucidate. "It 
occurred to me," he says, "to call 
on my friend, Mr. Webster, and 
ask him to help me. I stated my 
difficulty. After pacing the floor for 
a few minutes he said, ' It is this 
way, is it not ? ' A sentence or two 
was enough. " Story had already 
made his own thought-solution so 
strong that a touch only of the 
master's hand was enough to make 
the reluctant crystals shoot. 

This will serve to illustrate the 
true idea in teaching. The truest 
teaching consists in getting the 
learner to do his best on the assigned 



22 THE OUTFIT. [|. 

task, and if he then fails, but only 
then, in helping him out. 

It is by faithfully performing the 
tasks assigned him in the studies of 
his Course that the student trains 
himself thus to penetrate, resolve, 
combine, and develop. In a mind 
so disciplined its possessor has an 
instrument of almost universal 
potency. This is the general outfit, 
to be supplemented by such special 
preparation as may be suited to each 
one's special work in life. The lib- 
eral training has already given fitness 
to master the problems in any one 
of the many waiting spheres ; in bus- 
iness, finance, statesmanship, law, 
medicine, theology, sociology, or 
science. You have by your broad 



I.] THE OUTFIT. 23 

and free culture developed a strong 
brace into the grip of whose stout 
jaws you can fix any one of a score 
oi bits, and by the sweep of whose 
powerful arm you can drive, or ream, 
or bore, as you will. The leverage of 
your freely-revolving brace is the 
liberal education lying back of the 
technical or professional bit, and 
giving to that its greatest efficiency 
and proudest triumph. Your merely 
technical man is a bit without the 
brace. The pugilist whose aim is to 
deliver the most telling blow with his 
clenched fist would deliver but a com- 
paratively feeble blow, were he to 
develop only the muscles of his arm. 
Instead of that, he puts into training 
his whole physique firom top to toe. 



24 THE OUTFIT, [i. 

Then into his clenched hand goes 
the accumulated might of his entire 
and symmetrically developed body. 

But in order to this ripe and 
well-rounded mental development is 
not the time spent in the Preparatory 
School and in the College unnecessa- 
rily long ? May not the Classics be 
dropped, and with them philosophy 
and a good part of the mathematics, 
and studies having a more direct 
bearing on the life-work of the 
student be put in their place ? Why 
take still the same old tedious route 
to the Indies, now that the Suez 
Canal is bracketed in the newer cata- 
logues of commerce as an easy-going 
*' elective " with the Cape ? 

That will do certainly, provided you 



I.] THE OUTFIT. 25 

can carry a man through college as 
a bale of cotton is carried half around 
the world in the hold, or as a passen- 
ger is carried in the cabin. 

Given a finished ship, and the pilot 
may find, if he can, a short and easy 
course. But how is your finished 
ship to be had ? It is made to order 
throughout, from stem to stern. It 
is not only begun on the stocks, but 
it stands stock-still till it is finished — 
made wholly what it is by forge and 
foundry, by adze, plane, saw, and 
sledge. But if only the miniature 
model of a ship, it be pushed out into 
the water, and if it can grow to be a 
strong and perfect ship only by sail- 
ing, then it must sail longer, and must 
longer feel the buffet of wind and wave. 



26 THE OUTFIT. [i. 

The question of the multiplication 
of *' electives," especially in the 
earlier part of the college course, re- 
solves itself, then, into the question 
of a fuller or more slender outfit. If 
the student and his friends are not 
particular about that, they need not 
be about the studies of the course. 
My own conviction is that what is 
most needed in our schools and 
colleges is not a larger proportion of 
''elective studies," but a larger pro- 
portion of students who shall elect to 
study / 



II. 

TEACHING, A FINE ART. 



II. 
TEACHING, A FINE ART. 

I. Four things are necessary to con- 
stitute any occupation an art. 

I. Art implies some want, physical 
or mental, real or imaginary, to be 
met ; some demand of necessity, com- 
fort, or luxury, to be supplied. As 
springing from desire, it is opposed to 
indifference. As striving to gratify 
desire, it is opposed to indolence. 
As working toward a clearly-defined 

object, it is opposed to mere business 

29 



30 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

or occupation. It is not effort in the 
dark or at random. If teaching be 
an art, it has a definite end. 

2. But aiming at, or even securing, 
a desired result does not of itself con- 
stitute art. You may get what you 
want by one trial, but not by another. 
A dairy-woman put ice in her cream 
in July, and the butter, she said, 
''came beautifully.'' She tried the 
same thing in August, and the butter 
did not come at all. Plainly she had 
not mastered the art of butter-making. 
Art is uniform method reaching uni- 
form result. It implies that what has 
been done once can be done again in 
the same way. And this implies that 
it can be taught and learned. You 
can not merely do the thing, you 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 31 

can tell others how it is done. 
Every art has, therefore, or may have 
its manuals, institutes, teachers, and 
models. 

Exalting experiment to the rank of 
art is quackery. The quack imagines 
that because one thing has followed 
another once or twice, it must always 
so follow. If he fails, he introduces 
the idea of luck. But his success is, 
in truth, as much a matter of luck as 
his failure. Now, art is opposed to 
both empiricism and luck. It is 
reliable. It does not break dowm 
unaccountably in its calculations. If 
teaching be an art, the teacher is no 
quack. It is not a matter of chance 
whether he teaches well or not. 

3. It is charactertisic of art that it 



32 TEACHING, A FINE ART. [ii. 

is founded on and embodies science. 
There is a reason for its processes, a 
philosophy in its results. Its methods 
are not blind, arbitrary, mysterious. 
There is in them a nice adaptation of 
means to the end ; the means being 
in exact accordance with the nature 
of the materials and forces employed. 
It is true that a thing may be done 
well and yet done by men who can 
give no reason for their methods. 
'* Explain to me the principle of the 
water-wheel you make here," I once 
said to the foreman of a large factory. 
He replied : '' I employ eighty 
men, and not one of them- can tell 
any thing about the principle on 
which the wheel is constructed. I 
can not tell, nor could the inventor 



11.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 33 

himself tell." It was of another 
excellent wheel, invented by an un- 
scientific man, that a learned scientist 
said : " It goes, but it oughtn't to !" 
Farmers of olden times did many 
things as well as we, although they 
knew nothing of the philosophy of 
their farming. The " Georgics " of 
Virgil's unscientific time may be 
studied to advantage by the farmers 
of to-day. 

For thousands of years art made 
progress through experiment alone. 
All her maxims and formulas were 
the steady accretions of patient but 
unintelligent trial. If a certain way 
of doing a thing was found to work 
well, that was enough. But it is not 
enough for us. We wish to know 



34 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

not only how a thing is done, but 
why it is so done. And we are not 
satisfied until we do know. Now, 
the farmer wants to know why lime 
is good for wheat, and the intelligent 
housewife wants to know why it is 
that yeast makes her bread to rise. 
What but the science of chemistry 
can tell whether the butter came in 
July on account of the ice or in spite 
of it } 

4. But on what does science itself 
depend ? This brings us to that 
which is fundamental in art ; and that 
is, uniformity in the nature of the 
materials with which she works, and 
uniformity in the operation of natural 
forces and agents. It is because 
collodion is always collodion, and 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART. 35 

because light is always light, that 
photography is an art. 

Art, then, is uniform method 
securing uniform result ; and this 
uniformity of method and result de- 
pends on the invariable qualities of 
those substances and forces with 
which art has to do. 

Let us apply these tests to teaching. 

And, first, has the teacher in view 
any clearly-ascertained, distinctly-com- 
prehended, well-defined end 1 

Here are two infants that give 
scarcely any sign beyond the signs of 
mere animal existence ; their mental 
powers undiscoverable by even the 
keenest observation ; in such deli- 
cate miniature are they traced and 
infolded. But fifty years pass, and 



36 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

we see Milton pluming his mighty 
wing, 

To fly at infinite, and reach it there, 
Where seraphs gather immortality. 

We see Newton standing like a colos- 
sal angel with his head among the 
stars, taking in at a glance the illimit- 
able sweep of worlds with all their 
variety and intricacy of movement, 
striking the balance of perturbations 
of cycles in duration and reading the 
laws of change and permanence as 
though they were but the alphabet of 
the heavens. All this is but an ex- 
pansion of what was at first small and 
weak. This is the province and 
proof of 'wise educational training. 
Not that all can by the wisest and 
best training be made Miltons or 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 37 

Newtons. It was a mistaken and 
misleading modesty which led New- 
ton to say that " patient thought " was 
all that made the difference between 
him and other men. It was not 
*' patient thinking" alone that made 
Newton what he was. It was New- 
ton thinking patiently. We need not, 
hov/ever, be Miltons and Newtons in 
order that we may be very happy and 
very useful. We are simply to use 
faithfully the talents God has en- 
trusted to us. And this right and 
full development is the primary object 
of education. 

I know that this view is objected 
to by some who call it the selfish 
theory, making all a man's efforts 
center in himself, to see how wise 



■» 



^S TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

and strong and superior he can be- 
come. With these objectors educa- 
tion means, not the '* drawing out '' 
of the mind's powers, but the " lead- 
ing of them forth " to the practical 
duties and utilities of life. I say so 
too, only I would combine the ety- 
mologies. The powers must first be 
*' drawn out " that you may have 
powers to *'lead forth." It may be 
'' more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive," but we must receive before we 
can give. We are incredulous of the 
wonders of precocity. The story of 
the infant Hercules strangling the 
snake in his cradle is not history, but 
mythology. 

The teacher who does not see 
clearly whither his teaching is tending 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 39 

is not an artist. If any thing good 
or great comes from his teaching, it 
is no thanks to him. He is innocent 
of intending any thing great, and will 
be as much surprised as anybody 
should such a result follow. As a 
boy will whittle away with nothing 
in his head he wishes to make or 
thinks of making, but comes to you, 
by and by, to admire the very ambig- 
uous horse he has, as he thinks, in- 
geniously carved, so many a toiling 
teacher hopes that some good will, 
in some way or other, come from 
his wearisome daily routine of duty. 
But what that good is, precisely, he 
does not know. With him teaching 
is simply occupation ; a going through 
the formalities of the class-room, for 



40 TEACHING, A FINE AR1\ [ii. 

doing which with a tolerable degree 
of regularity he gets so much pay. 

But does teaching meet the second 
requisite of art ? Is there any fixed, 
reliable, uniform way of calling out 
by exercise and discipline, so as to 
strengthen and mature harmoniously, 
the faculties of the pupil's mind? 
Many are inclined to think not. 
Their impression is that the success- 
ful management of a school or college 
is rather a haphazard affair ; that a 
good teacher is a rare and fortunate, 
but inexpHcable, phenomenon ; that 
success comes more from knack than 
any thing else. What we often hear 
is that he or she *'has a wonderful 
knack at interesting his or her 
scholars, and getting them to learn." 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 41 

Now, if this be the true state of the 
case, then teaching is not an art. We 
who claim that it is one, must be able 
to tell how the thing is done. There 
must be uniform method. 

And I affirm that we can tell, and 
that there is such method. And 
we maintain this by referring, as in 
the physical arts, to the science of 
teaching ; by examining the materials 
on which we are to work, and the 
agents, forces, and influences to be 
employed. If we find these to be 
uniform, the point is gained. 

In this inquiry we shall be assisted 
by noticing, at the outset, an obvious 
distinction in the methods of the 
different departments of mechanical 
and professional skill. 



42 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

1. Some deal only with inert, pas- 
sive materials. The materials lie in 
your hand or on your bench, and you 
can do any thing you choose with 
them. You can cut and carve at 
your pleasure. They oppose nothing 
to your operations; they contribute 
nothing. They neither help nor 
hinder. This is the lowest form of 
art, and these branches of it we call 
trades. They give exercise, however, 
to much taste and skill. 

2. Another class depends largely 
on mechanical or chemical forces. 
They deal not only with substances, 
but with powers. Such are the tel- 
egraphic and photographic arts, and 
the manufacture and use of steam 
and electric engines. Here subtle and 



u.] TEACHING, A FINE ART. 43 

powerful agents are employed ; agents 
working according to fixed condi- 
tions, which must be ascertained and 
complied with, or there is no success. 
These branches of mechanism require, 
in general, a finer eye, greater judg- 
ment, and more careful manipulation 
and adjustment. The distinguishing 
mark of effectiveness in this class is 
the subsidizing of mechanical power. 

3. A third class depends for its 
existence on vital power ; in which 
is concerned the agency of life and 
growth. Under this head comes 
agriculture, floriculture, and horticult- 
ure, where vegetable life is involved ; 
and teaching, where mental life is 
involved. 

Now, the method of teaching v/ill 



44 TEACHING, A FINE ART. [ii. 

be most clearly illustrated by the 
methods employed in those arts most 
analogous to it ; that is, in those at 
the foundation of which lie the princi- 
ples of life and growth. By attend- 
ing to these analogies we can not 
fail to get a clear understanding of 
the true mode of mental culture. 

The first and most important thing 
to be considered is that the mind of 
the pupil is a living agent, and that its 
proper growth is the primary object 
of education. 

Now, if a tree is dead, there is the 
end of it. You may put it in the 
finest orchard, and give it the best 
attention; you may enrich, prune, and 
protect it till doomsday ; it will do no 
good. You give the tree nourish- 



!!.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 45 

ment, but there is no life to take it 
up, digest, and assimilate it. You 
can not go behind the bark and create 
life. You may bruise, scarify, and 
peel ; it is of no avail. So in the 
class-room. Once in a while you 
come across a pupil who seems to 
have no intellectual life. He has no 
idea of study, and no sort of relish 
for it. If he does any thing at all, it 
is not because he has the slightest 
interest in his task. Here is need 
of wisdom and patience. You must 
know when and how to simplify or 
vary the task so as to make it attract- 
ive. By gentle methods, by holding 
over such a mind the glass of kind- 
ness, and concentrating on it the 
warm rays of an enlightened, afFec- 



46 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

tionate, and patient interest, you will 
call the slow-sprouting germ forth ; 
and when you see signs of spontane- 
ous activity, your work is well begun. 
But from the very first the faculties, 
so soon as born, must begin to grow. 
And things grow only by eating. 
Now, there is no eating that amounts 
to much without an appetite. There 
is no hearty devouring of knowledge 
without an appetite for knowledge. 
But this appetite is, normally, a part 
of our constitution, and in it the 
Creator has laid the foundation for 
the teacher's success. But the appe- 
tite is sometimes feeble, and then 
what is to be done ? You must not 
force food upon it. That is the way 
to destroy what little appetite there 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 47 

is. Many a lad has been nauseated 
by forcing food down his throat for 
which he had not the shghtest reUsh. 
We tempt a feeble appetite by serv- 
ing up some delicate morsel. So will 
the skillful teacher tempt the appetite 
of the slow pupil by pleasant anec- 
dote and easy explanation ; by time- 
ly and patient assistance. Depend 
upon it, the great thing is to get up 
an appetite. Get the mind's diges- 
tion fairly at work. Your work will 
be easy and delightful after that. 
You have then only to set the table 
and put on the dishes. I remember 
going once into a planing mill. 
There was a mighty power at work 
there. The machine had a tremen- 
dous appetite for lumber. All the 



48 TEACHING, A FINE ART. [ii. 

man had to do was to feed it ; or, 
rather, he had merely to place the 
boards before it and guide them. The 
machine fed itself. It had a mighty 
bite. This bite is what the true 
scholar has. He will seize and de- 
vour knowledge if it be placed rightly 
in his way. See what an appetite a 
vigorous tree has. Consider the 
astonishing force with which it draws 
up to the topmost leaf of the topmost 
bough nourishment from the root. 
This is the first, the indispensable 
thing in successful teaching ; to get 
the student interested in his studies. 
And the only way to do this is to get 
him to tise his faculties. The mind 
finds pleasure in its own activity. The 
teacher, therefore, will be careful 



M 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 49 

never to overtask that faculty whose 
growth he would foster. Here comes 
in the principle of correct classifica- 
tion. Pupils whose faculties are in 
about the same stage of development 
should be classed together ; so that 
there is sound philosophy in our 
graded system in this respect. 

The meaning of this system is that 
the teacher is to exercise his skill in 
introducing a pupil to a new study at 
the proper time, or so soon as he is 
ready for it, and not before. Differ- 
ent faculties are awakened at differ- 
ent times ; perception, memory, and 
imagination early, the reason later, 
and the reflective faculty last of all. 
Now wait until the faculty is born 
before you set it to work. It is 



50 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

worse than lost time ambitiously to 
attempt grammar or geometry, the 
Calculus or metaphysics too soon. 
From lack of discernment here, great 
harm is often done. Nature incu- 
bates her own capabilities. Study 
the period of incubation, and then 
nurse the offspring. 

I must dwell a moment on the im- 
portance of this second direction, to 
make the newly-awakened faculty 
work. Take the logical or reasoning 
faculty. What is food for that ? 
Mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, ge- 
ometry. Now, that faculty must be 
led to do its own proper work, and 
not allowed, as is often done, to shirk 
it off upon the memory. The reason 
must be made to reason. The pupil 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, j^ 

should never be taught, encouraged, 
or allowed to work by mere rule, 
without understanding the principle. 
In arithmetic the prime point is not 
how many examples the scholar can 
work ; nor in geometry how many 
theorems he can repeat, but does he 
understand the methods of solution 
and proof? The question here is 
not merely what can you doy but what 
^r^ you? The verb ''to be" comes 
first in practical importance, as it 
comes first in our grammars, and is 
auxiliary to all verbs of action. Are 
you a good arithmetician or alge- 
braist ? You may work a mulitude 
of examples and not be either. If 
all your capital is invested in exam- . 
pies, carefully recorded in a blank- 



52 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

book, or simply in a memorizing of 
the rules, it will yield you a meager 
interest. But invest in principles, 
and they will afford you a magnificent 
income. Rules, then^ become your 
servants ; otherwise they are your 
imperious masters. The man of rules 
must remember and scrupulously fol- 
low the directions of the guide who 
has kindly volunteered them. He 
must remember and take the first 
left-hand road till he comes to the 
creek ; then take up the hill to the 
right, and on to the cross-roads ; then 
to the left again ; the second frame 
house on the corner is the answer. 
The man of principles has a compass. 
He knows the general direction. He 
has a map of the country, and can go 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART. 53 

where he chooses. Fie can thread 
the forest ; he can follow the brook 
up the ravine ; he can follow a bee 
to her hive in a hollow tree ; he can 
double the largest clearing, and yet 
come out right at last. He keeps 
his bearings and distances all along. 
Of all that comes within the survey 
of that principle he is complete mas- 
ter. The man of rules dare not set 
foot out of the prescribed path. He 
is blind, must be led by a string, and 
dare not let go lest he be lost. 

SCHOOL GOVERNMENT. 

The analogy I have used of mental 
appetite and digestion serves very 
well to illustrate further the art and 
measure of school government. A 



54 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

man ought not to be disturbed at his 
meals. But the mind's mouth is 
attention. All knowledge enters by 
that. To keep the attention of the 
scholar from hindering distractions is 
the object aimed at in school or col- 
lege arrangements and regulations. 
Attention must not be unfixed nor 
made difficult by any thing v/ithout, 
as by the ill-location of the building ; 
nor by a surplus of holiday interrup- 
tions ; nor by any thing within, as by 
bodily discomfort, uncomfortable 
seats, bad ventilation, insufficient 
warmth or light ; or by disturbance 
of the feelings, the indulgence of 
anger, resentment, hatred, or other 
evil or malign disposition. The 
teacher must not put himself into 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 55 

antagonism with his pupils, but must 
secure their love ; nor must there be 
mischievous interference of the pupils 
one with another. 

Nor must the teacher allow his 
own mind to be distracted during the 
hours of instruction. And here I 
would say that if things go w^rong, 
let them not chafe and fret you, nor 
imagine that wrong things must be 
rectified always on the spot. Take 
time out of school hours to gauge the 
difficulty and contrive a suitable 
remedy. 

IL But teaching is one of the fine 
or liberal, as well as one of the most 
useful of the arts. In a strictly use- 
ful art all the products are alike ; or, 
at least, the more nearly alike they 



a 



56 TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

are, the more perfect the art is 
reckoned to be. One pin of the 
row is like all the rest. Waltham and 
Elgin watches are recommended on 
the ground that exact duplicates of 
each part are ''kept constantly on 
hand/' so that if you break or lose a 
part you can easily replace it. Not 
so with the productions of the poet, 
painter, or sculptor. The painter 
makes each face and each scene a 
separate study. He studies differ- 
ences rather than resemblances. Not 
less does the true teacher make a 
separate study of the disposition, 
capabilities, and possibilities of each 
one of his pupils, and for each one 
has a somewhat different treatment 
adapted to his peculiar need. 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART, 57 

In the mechanical or useful arts, 
the exact amount of labor is specified 
as well as the compensation. It is so 
much work for so much money ; the 
plastering so much by the square 
yard, the paper-hanging so much by 
the piece, the masonry so much by 
the perch, and the measurement all 
to the fraction. But how absurd 
to order and pay for a painting by 
the square yard or for a statue by the 
solid foot ! No more can the amount 
of earnestness and enthusiasm and in- 
genuity which a teacher shall put in- 
to his work, be contracted and paid 
for. Yet it is often attempted, and 
by a multitude of rigid and hamper- 
ing restrictions, school committees 
often do all in their power to degrade 



58 TEACHING, A FINE ART. [ii. 

teaching to the level of a trade. Such 
committees would do well to recall 
how the penurious nobleman fared at 
the hands of the celebrated Hogarth, 
whom he persuaded, after much 
miserly chaffering, to paint for him 
a picture of the passage of the Red 
Sea by the Israelites. Called in due 
time to inspect the painting, the 
nobleman saw to his amazement only 
a plain water surface. ''What have 
you here ! " he exclaimed in anger. 
''Just what you ordered," replied 
Hogarth. "Yes, but where are the 
Israelites?" "They are all gone 
over." " But where are the Egyp- 
tians ? " " They are all drowned, my 
lord." 

The artist has a marked advantage 



II.] TEACHING, A FINE ART. 5^ 

in this, that no one can mar his work 
but himself. The unfinished model 
remains in the studio until he recom- 
mences his toil. When the teacher 
intermits his task, his model may- 
be subjected to the strokes of rude 
and careless hands. What painter 
but would give up in despair were 
his canvas to be touched and dashed 
by a hundred pencils besides his own ! 
Yet nobler, by far, is the teacher's 
work than that of the artist. The 
material on which the artist's skill is 
employed is lifeless matter; the 
teacher fashions a living, spiritual 
being. The end of the former is 
attained by mechanical subtraction 
or accretion ; of the latter by the 
development of a vital germ. The 



6o TEACHING, A FINE ART, [ii. 

artist strives to embody his own con- 
ception ; the teacher to unfold the 
involved purpose of the Creator. 

The artist's work stays as he leaves 
it at the completion of his task ; or, 
rather, under Time's effacing touch it 
undergoes from that moment a slow 
but sure decay. The importance of 
each effort, therefore, is measured by 
its relation to his achievement at the 
moment of its completion. That im- 
portance is circumscribed by the 
hmited duration of his work. The 
labor of the teacher ceases in its in- 
fluence, never. The mind which he 
helps to fashion in both its being and 
its progress, is eternal. 



III. 

THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 



,- ^- -• •s,^ 



III. 
THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 

We are born radicals. We like to 

go to the root of things ; to get, if we 

can, at the one central germ from 

which all grows and is built up. 

Only the most immature minds are 

satisfied with mere results. It is 

enough for the little Budges to see 

the " wheels go wound," but your 

grown boy or girl wants to see the 

watch taken apart, and to be shown 

separately each jewel, pinion, wheel, 

63 



64 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

and screw. We have a painfully con- 
fused feeling at seeing a cotton mill 
or a power printing-press in opera- 
tion, until we understand how the 
machinery goes together, and the 
principle on which it works. And 
the shortest and surest way of under- 
standing what at first seems only a 
tangle is to see the machine in its 
simplest form. Ungear your steam- 
engine ; look at it uncombined with 
other machinery ; keep only what is 
indispensable ; you then have an in- 
strument of few parts, whose make 
and manner of w^orking even a child 
can understand. 

A great literary institution is, at 
first sight, a complicated affair. On 
visiting such an institution you are 



i& 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 65 

shown through a multitude of places 
— halls, dormitories, chapels, cabinets, 
museums, libraries, laboratories, gym- 
nasiums, recitation and lecture rooms. 
You are taken to see great old books 
in dead old tongues and parchment 
covers, meteorites and fossils, skel- 
etons and manikins, magnetic coils 
and electric wheels, transits and the- 
odolites, microscopes and telescopes, 
gasometers and blow-pipes. The 
vast and complex array confounds 
you ; you are overwhelmed by the 
magnitude and variety of the things 
to be learned ; it is a mystery to you 
how any man can spool so many 
threads of knowledge and weave 
them all into a consistent web ; you 
have a suffering sense of your igno- 



66 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

ranee, and a eolossal idea of the learn- 
ing which must be represented by a 
university diploma. But pierce to 
the middle, strip the institution of 
these material helps which it has 
taken centuries, perhaps, to bring 
together, go back to the rude begin- 
nings, and you find what is almost 
too simple for merely external 
description. The Emperor Charle- 
magne, on being told that two men, 
meanly clad, were crying at a 
street corner, ''We have learning to 
sell," is said to have ordered the two 
men into his presence, and to have 
asked what he could do for them, 
and on their replying, " Sii, give us 
food, clothing, and scholars," to have 
taken under his patronage the two 



ni.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 67 

teachers, one of whom afterward 
became the founder of the Univer- 
sity of Pavia, 

Scholars and teachers are the two 
essentials of every educational institu- 
tion. Study and helps to study em- 
brace it all. Two of the most famous 
schools of their own or of any time, 
the Academy and the Lyceum, had 
this embryo simplicity. Plato and 
Aristotle walked with their pupils 
in groves and gardens, or sat with 
them in the porches of villas. This 
one living germ draws to itself in 
due time buildings, libraries, appara- 
tus, every needful appurtenance. A 
mind in love with and earnestly 
seeking knowledge is at once an 
epitome and a prophecy of the acad- 



68 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [in. 

emy, the college, the seminary, the 
university. 

The possession of a power is itself 
a pledge that a field will be given for 
its exercise ; capacity for growth, a 
pledge that the means of growth 
will be supplied. Else, the power 
and the capacity would be but incon- 
clusive and mocking fragments ; the 
foundation of a tower which could 
not be finished. God does not do 
things after that fashion. Steam- 
power proves the existence of fuel 
without which the steam could not 
be generated. The tinkling lid of 
the boiling tea-kettle finds its echo 
in the click of the coal-miner's pick. 
God does nothing by halves. The 
fourth day's work of creation was 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 69 

the logical sequence to that of the 
third. The making of grass, herbs, 
and trees made it sure that the sun 
would follow. The nobler end shall 
not fail for lack of the less noble 
means. The life is more than meat. 
The sunflower is more than the sun. 
The solar system might be studied 
in the violet. The acorn is a vest- 
pocket edition of Copernicus in 
brown binding and tucked cover. 

The coming spring finds all grow- 
ing things in attitude of eager expec- 
tation. Under the sward of meadows 
wakened lilies are impatient to lay 
off the night-dress of their homely 
bulbs, and to put on that unwoven 
beauty in the like of which even 
Solomon in all his glory w^as not 



70 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

arrayed. The peach has set its 
germs, and the apple is in blossom. 
The smiling procession of the flowers, 
with the arbutus at its head, has 
begun to move. The ivy, now scarce 
able in the breeze to hold with its 
tiny fingers to the base of the tower, 
hides an ambitious secret in its breast, 
and trusts yet to pin a streamer on 
the very point of the pinnacle. The 
hillside laurel has planned to cover, 
with a denser foliage, the rim and 
sides of its granite vase. The beech 
is resolved to widen his green shelves, 
the oak to stretch a cubit farther his 
wide-spread arms, and the cedar to 
mount upward to the full stature 
of the forest king. 

Here on the one hand are manifold 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 71 

life, and capacity for growth. On 
the other is the sun, God's great pro- 
vision for the quickening of this life, 
and the perfecting of this growth. 
And these two are but corresponding 
parts of one great scheme, joined to- 
gether in divine, indissoluble wed- 
lock. 

Nor is this scheme of divine be- 
neficence to be trifled or interfered 
with. What God has joined together 
let no disgusts or jealousies of the 
upper air put asunder. Let the life- 
giving rays be unimpeded in their 
descent. Let them be free to all the 
vegetable tribes ; to the lowly as well 
as to the lofty ; to the plain as well 
as to the beautiful ; to the frail as 
well as to the stalwart. Let each 



72 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

take from sun, soil, rain, and dew 
what is needful to its fullest growth, 
its highest life. Let cloud and fog 
monopolies be broken up. Let up- 
start vapors be dispelled. Let the 
sovereignty be maintained, established 
by God in the beginning, when He 
appointed the ''greater light" to 
"rule'' as well as irradiate the day, 
and the " lesser light " to " rule " as 
well as illuminate the night. 

With greater emphasis is each de- 
sire and capability in man a prevision 
and pledge of provision and oppor- 
tunity. 

The universe is but a store-house 
for his needs. And the universe 
should be open so that God's ca- 
pacities in all men and in all women 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 73 

may have freest access to God's op- 
portunities. 

The attempt to crush or to starve 
any of the mind's native capabilities 
or desires argues either fraud, mis- 
guidance, imbecility, or oppression. 
The monastery and the convent, in 
the most charitable view, are monu- 
ments of weakness. The St. Anto- 
nies, St. Simons, and St. Benedicts, 
Abbots and Lady Superiors, monks 
and nuns, are princes self-discrowned. 
They make an '' open, unconditional 
rupture " with desires and capabilities 
in themselves innocent, and sacrifice 
freedom and dominion to an " ener- 
getic, but mistaken, idea of self-con- 
trol." 

Let clean riddance be made of that 



74 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

tyranny, whether of ecclesiasticism, 
custom, prejudice, or law, which cuts 
off any power of any man or of any 
woman on its way to provision ; any 
capacity of man or woman on its 
way to opportunity ; which inter- 
cepts the poor on their way to wealth, 
the ignorant on their way to knowl- 
edge, the erring on their way to truth. 
It is a great point already gained, 
the taking away of so many barriers, 
and the opening to all of so many 
avenues to growth, culture, discipline, 
and usefulness, and especially for 
v/oman. Mrs. Montague, as quoted 
by Mrs. Fawcett in Good Words, 
wrote in 1773 about the education of 
her eldest niece : " I am glad you 
are going to send my eldest niece to 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 75 

a boarding-school. I believe all 
boarding-schools are much on the 
same plan, so that you may place the 
young lady wherever there is a good 
air and a good dancing-master/' An- 
other favorite theory was that a 
w^oman was good mainly to w^ork 
button - holes and slipper - patterns. 
" Between those old ideas of feeble- 
ness, prettiness, and dependence, and 
the perfect woman of this era, 
endowed with endurance, foresight, 
strength, and skill, there is a tremen- 
dous chasm." But what the real 
capacity of woman is, can be known, 
as Mrs. Fawcett says, only after long 
experience. '' The notions that all 
men are logical and all women emo- 
tional ; that women are much quicker 



76 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

at coming at a conclusion, but can 
not tell how they arrived at it, are in 
process of giving way, and have com- 
pletely given way in those who at 
Girton College and Newnham Hall 
(the woman's colleges in Cambridge, 
England) have had opportunity of 
comparing the powers of the young 
women who are students there, with 
the powers of the graduates of 
the university. These gentlemen 
have found that the young women 
differ intellectually from the young 
men less than had been supposed, 
and in a different direction. The 
logical faculty of the young women 
is much greater, their power of so- 
called intuitive perception is much 
less than had been anticipated. Some 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, yy 

years, however, must elapse before a 
really fair comparison can be made 
between the intellectual capacity of 
men and women." 

I have myself the conviction that 
women can be trusted as safely as 
men to decide for themselves what 
spheres they can fill and what voca- 
tions it is suitable for them to follow. 
I do not think they are likely to 
make any worse mistakes than men, 
many of whom choose spheres and 
follow callings not altogether credit- 
able to their instincts nor honorable 
to their manhood. The safe way for 
a true woman, as for a true man, is, 
if she finds any thing she herself 
thinks it proper to do, and thinks her- 
self qualified to do, to do it. 



yS THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [in. 

A woman may seem to be out of 
her sphere for a time, simply because 
it is a time of transition in public 
sentiment. But this may be only to 
find her element at a higher stage ; 
just as the boats on one of the great 
water-ways of New Jersey are seen 
for a brief interval riding on inclined 
planes through the air, only to take 
the water again at a higher level. 

IL But what shall we do with our 
education now that we have gotten it ? 
or rather, what shall we do with our 
educated selves ? If the King sends 
you seeds of beautiful and rare 
flowers, you know what he expects 
you to do with the seeds. He expects 
you to grow the flowers. But he also 
expects that you will do something 



■AM 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 79 

with the flowers after they are grown : 
that you will place them where their 
beauty and fragrance can be enjoyed. 
A ship-owner does not leave a strong 
and beautiful ship to rot upon the 
stocks, nor does he tow it into a dry- 
dock, content to hang on its side a 
certificate that the ship is built after 
the most scientific pattern, and has 
been examined and approved by a 
competent inspector. He builds it 
for sailing. He launches it and sails 
it on waters where it can sail best and 
be of most service ; whether it be 
lake, river, sound, or ocean; whether to 
coast along our own shores, or whether 
it be di Morning Star to bear glad 
messages to far-off islands of the sea. 
The vital question reaching far be- 



So THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [m. 

yond mere details and incidents of 
spheres and occupations is, wliat prin- 
ciple shall actuate us, whatever the 
sphere or employment may be ? The 
incidents of an ocean voyage may be 
indefinitely variedc The question is, 
Is the ship headed to the right port, 
and are we keeping her steadily to 
her course ? Newman Hall says that 
in his return voyage to England, a 
bevy of birds accompanied the ship ; 
that they made frequent and some- 
times wide excursions to one side and 
the other of the ship's course, but that 
they always returned and alighted on 
the vessel's masts or yards, and so 
completed the voyage with the ship. 
What is the one high, controlling- 
purpose which we may continually 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 8l 

come back to from our daily bread- 
winning; from our aesthetic, scientific 
or literary excursions ? The purpose 
which shall give us dominion and a 
certain independence over all these 
busy flights, and which survives them 
all; an aim and a purpose which find 
their glad and glorious accomplish- 
ment when the port is gained, and 
the wings are peacefully folded with 
the folded sails. 

Such purpose is possible by virtue 
of our being endowed with moral 
affections ; and by this I mean, gener- 
ically, the power we have of devot- 
ing our whole selves in whatever 
direction we wish, to whatsoever 
pursuit or person. The fundamental 
idea in the affections is choice, and 



82 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

choice in its very nature is free. This 
power belongs to man only. 

Man only, in other words, has the 
power, as Hickok says, to " behave " 
himself ; to have or hold himself to 
a course of his own choosing. Brutes 
are held to their respective courses. 
Man holds himself " Thou hast put 
all things under his feet. Thou hast 
given him dominion." 

Where shall this dominion be 
found ? Not in the realm of mere 
growth or culture. The scepter we 
seek must be a scepter that can 
neither be broken nor snatched away 
from us. But that may seem to be 
free and to have dominion which is 
free, and has dominion only for a 
certain time and place. Make your 



mmmm 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, Z^ 

prison limits as wide as you please, 
it is a prison still. Sisyphus domi- 
nates the stone to the top of the hill, 
then the stone in its turn dominates 
him ; it breaks away and rolls to the 
bottom. A ship caught in the outer 
circles of the maelstrom has the free- 
dom of that water, but is for all that 
a captive. The helm may seem to 
control, but the mightier eddy con- 
trols the helm and swings the ship 
round and round irresistibly toward 
the devouring center. So all material 
growth reaches its maturity and then 
dechnes. It finds itself, ere long, 
in the grip of a remorseless vortex. 
The violet is free to bloom and the 
pine to soar. But both yield their 
dominion at length to overmastering 



84 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

decay. No plant or tree is perennial ; 
none lives through all years. Our 
bodies grow freely, but soon find 
themselves in fetters. Plato and 
Garzo (the father of Petrarch) die 
on their respective birthdays, each in 
the same bed in which he was born. 
In four single-line pictures, Holmes 
gives us the entire career of America's 
greatest orator and statesman : 

A home amid the mountain pines ; 

A cloister by the hill-girt plain ; 
The front of life's embattled lines ; 

A mound beside the heaving main. 

The circle is complete. We end 
as we begin — with dust. 

Nor can science give us the lord- 
ship we seek. For vast as are the 
realms she traverses, even science her- 
self is a slave to a like inexorable 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 85 

monotony. What are all her paths 
but circuits ? Mercury revolves about 
the sun in eighty-seven days ; Her- 
schel in eighty-four years. Their 
orbits are but inner and outer walls 
of the same prison. 

But between the moral affections 
and all that we find in science there 
is this immense difference, that where- 
as in science we know just what to 
count upon beforehand, in the realm 
of the affections we have no such lim- 
itation. Let a man give himself 
freely to any pursuit or to any person, 
and there is no telling at all before- 
hand what and how much that man, 
and especially that woman, will do. 

There is no telling what Jonathan 
will do now that he has given him- 



86 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

self to David so that he loves him 
" as his own soul." David can count 
with almost scientific accuracy on the 
flight of a projectile, and on the re- 
sult when that projectile impinges 
on the forehead of a boastful Philis- 
tine. To his practiced eye and arm 
there is nothing surprising, nothing 
'' wonderful " in that. But the love 
of Jonathan, that love which, over- 
mastering envy and ambition, helps 
David to the throne of which Jona- 
than is himself the rightful heir ; the 
love which makes Jonathan happy to 
say, "Thou shalt be King and I shall 
be next unto thee " — that is to David 
an unceasing marvel : '' Thy love to 
me is wonderful, passing the love of 



women." 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 87 

Souls do not blend according to 
any law of equivalents or multiple 
proportions. We have in chemistry 
not only prot-oxides and deut-oxides, 
but /^r-oxides, compounds contain- 
ing oxygen in its largest measure of 
combination. But who has yet found 
the limit beyond which the love of 
a wife will not go for her husband, or 
of a mother for her child, or of a 
father for even his erring boy ? The 
prodigal, on his way home, can rely 
perfectly on the old routine of seed- 
time and harvest bringing bread in its 
season to even the " servants " of his 
father's house. But could he have 
counted beforehand on that father 
running out to meet him while yet 
a great way off ; the embrace, the 



88 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

kiss, the robe and the ring, the shoes, 
and the fatted calf? 

A man gives himself to his coun- 
try. You can not calculate on him 
after that. Neither drillmaster nor 
paymaster can help you in your calcu- 
lations. The cleverest scientist could 
not have written up Thermopylae, 
Sempach, Bunker Hill, or Valley 
Forge, in advance. 

A young midshipman once felt im- 
pressed that he should never rise in 
his profession. '' My mind," he said, 
" was staggered with a view of the 
difficulties which I had to surmount, 
and the little interest I possessed. If 
at a moment I felt the emulation of 
ambition, I shrunk back as having 
no means in my power of reaching 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 89 

the object of my wishes. After a 
long and gloomy reverie, in which I 
almost wished myself overboard, a 
sudden glow of patriotism was kindled 
within my breast and presented my 
king and my country as my patrons. 
' Well, then,' I exclaimed, ' I will be 
a hero, and confiding in Providence I 
will brave every danger.' '' From that 
hour his despondency was changed 
to hope, and a radiant orb was sus- 
pended before his mind's eye, which 
urged him on to renov/n, and which 
has made the name of Nelson im- 
mortal. 

We talk of the ''hberal" profes- 
sions. But thorough self-devotion 
makes any vocation liberal. It is not 
the profession that is liberal, but the 



go THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

man. The physician, lawyer, minis- 
ter, or teacher, may be the veriest 
drudge, going through the round of 
his professional tasks as mechanically 
as the mule in any other mill. And, 
on the other hand, the farmer at his 
plow, the mechanic at his bench, the 
merchant at his counter, the banker 
at his desk, may be raised high above 
the busy monotonies of their respect- 
ive callings, for their thoughts may 
be all the while on those for whom 
they thus freely toil and plan — home 
and school and church and town 
and state and country — to help on, 
if by ever so little, whatever in the 
world is good and pure and true. 

It is a high and grand prerogative 
we use when we thus give ourselves 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 91 

to any person or pursuit with all the 
fervor and energy of our nature. But 
we must go one step higher. It is true 
we are to choose our own way. As 
every man has a memory of his own, 
an imagination and a reason of his 
ov^n, so every man (as well as every 
"woman") is to have a will of his own, 
a mind of his own, and a way of his 
own. But then it makes all the differ- 
ence in this world and the next, what 
kind of a will, what kind of a mind, 
and what kind of a way, it is. It has 
been said that " God does not give us 
brains and then condemn us for using 
them." Not for using them, certainly, 
but for using them wrongly. Is 
freedom to think, talk, feel, and act, 
freedom to think, feel, talk, and act 



92 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [in. 

only wrongly and wickedly? God 
does not punish us for using the eyes 
which He has given us. But shall we 
therefore stare at the blazing mid-day 
sun ? There are false ways of think- 
ing, feeling, and doing, and there are 
right ways. And of those which are 
right and good, there is a highest and 
best. And if we would have a true 
and lasting, an unrestrained and an 
immovable dominion, we must see to 
it that the crown be upon the right 
head. We shall be subject to its 
annoying and ceaseless protests, if 
we discrown what God has made re- 
gal. And the true, lasting, unrestricted 
lordship is the Lordship of Love. 

This gives us the true philosophy 
of life ; a philosophy which found its 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 93 

perfect embodiment in Him who 
'' went about doing good," who said, 
" It is more blessed to give than to 
receive," and whose death was an act 
of loving sacrifice in behalf of others. 
It is for this He has superlative honor, 
" a name which is above every name/' 
It is for this He is to have superlative 
dominion, that "to him every knee 
shall bow." For this each recorded 
incident of His life and of His death is, 
and ever will be, most sacredly cher- 
ished. We celebrate His nativity, al- 
though we know not the date of His 
birth. We ransack history, sift tradi- 
tions, hunt for manuscripts, interro- 
gate coins and medals, decipher hiero^ 
glyphics, study the significance of 
types, pry into the meaning of proph- 



94 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [iii. 

ecy, inquire into the structure of 
parables, unfold the history and laws 
of language, discuss the true princi- 
ples of interpretation ; we set our feet 
on every rood of the holy and adja- 
cent lands — all, that we may find what 
may throw some light on the life and 
mission of Jesus. Never lived there 
the man concerning whose whole life 
and person the world feels so deep 
and abiding an interest ; the man 
touching whose dress, manner, voice, 
and face the world would so eagerly 
welcome any authentic addition to its 
present knowledge. 

The like fehcity of fond, unyielding 
recollection belongs in its measure to 
all those who drink deeply of this 
same actively-benevolent spirit. The 



III.] THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, 95 

names of Paul, Oberlin, Gordon Hall, 
Samuel J. Mills, Henry Martyn, 
Harriet Newell, and Mary Lyon the 
world will not let die. The story of 
their lives will enkindle love, stir 
compassion for the ignorant and err- 
ing, and animate holy resolve to bless 
and save men, until the Millennium. 
Not their great powers of mind ; not 
their learning, scholarship, nor culture, 
but what they did in loving self-denial 
for the good of others, will make their 
names precious, and their dominion 
sure through all time. 

And as in individual lives, so this 
lordship of love is the unifying, organ- 
izing power, also, in history. Looked 
at from the outside, history is a tale 
of revolutions only ; the birth, growth. 



gS THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

and death of governments, institu- 
tions, nationalities, and civilizations ; 
arts lost and recovered, knowledge 
flourishing and declining — Layard 
and Schleimann exhuming monu- 
ments of skill, now gazed at in stupid 
wonder by the descendants of those 
who wrought them — one religion 
displaced by another, to be itself sup- 
planted in turn ; the site of Solomon's 
temple crowned anon by the Mosque 
of Omar ; the once Christian Church 
of St. Sophia surmounted for centuries 
by the Moslem crescent, but likely 
itself at no distant day to be replaced 
by the once more victorious cross — 
and so night chasing day, and day 
chasing night around the world, and 
yet the entire globe never irradiated 



III.] THE LORDSHIP GF LOVE. 97 

at once ; and yet out of all these 
revolutions is the gradual but sure 
evolution of that kingdom of love 
which can not be moved, and which 
is without end. 

This is a supremacy that was be- 
yond the wisdom of the old civiliza- 
tions. ** The Roman world," says 
Pressense, '' was sick, not only from 
the shocks it had received, but from a 
profound disgust of all things. Their 
malady was weariness of ordinary 
life. Satiated with all they had seen 
or possessed, they asked with scorn, 
* Is it always to be the same?' In 
search of novelty they tortured nature, 
but could not escape monotony, and 
ended by plunging into the mire. 
Seeking the infinite in the finite, it 



gS THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. [iii. 

grasped after the impossible in real 
things; or extravagant refinement 
and false grandeur, blended with 
eccentricity in pleasure as in pomp." 
Our own civilization is higher and 
more enduring only because of its 
deeper and m.ore enduring basis, the 
revealed Word of God, the noblest 
regenerator of character, the true 
and only hope of the world. What 
more utterly senseless can be con- 
ceived than the clamor of those " self- 
sufficient, all-sufficient, insufficient '' 
men who prate about the Bible as 
an antiquated book, entirely *' behind 
the times " ? Will these jeering 
praters tell us where we shall look 
for " the times " that are, as yet, 
quite up to the Bible ; up to its 



iii.j THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE. 99 

exalted standard of individual, do- 
mestic, and social virtue ; of unseen 
and unpraised purity of feeling and 
desire, as well as of purity of act and 
speech ; of strictest fidelity in the dis- 
charge of every private and public 
trust; of open-hearted honesty in all 
transactions of trade ; of equal regard 
for another's good name and good 
success as for one's own ; of hatred 
of the cowardliness of deceiving and 
courageous telling of the truth ; of 
prompt and manly acknowledging of 
benefits which have been gladly ac- 
cepted and enjoyed ; of that ready 
compassion which neighbors even a 
stranger's distress ; of answering sor- 
row for another's sorrowing, and of 
unenvious joy for another's rejoicing ; 



lOO THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE, [in. 

of outreaching good- will for the dark- 
ened and distressed of even most dis- 
tant lands; of love to enemies, and 
forgiveness of wrongs that are con- 
fessed, repented of, and forsaken. 

No. What is needed, rather, is 
that we go from these lofty heights 
of inspiration down into the greeds 
and dishonesties, the ambitions and 
resentments, the envies and cruelties, 
the sorrow and unrest of the *' times," 
and bring the " times '' up to the love, 
purity, peace, and joy of the Bible. 



nil 8 tfl06 



